Feu Feu Feu – Films – Visions du Réel

Fire Fire Fire

Pauline Jeanbourquin
Switzerland | 2024 | 65 min
World premiere
Language : French
Subtitle : English

Juliette has just finished school and aspires to become a midwife. On social media, “Junniverse” is known as a “fire-talker” – a gift she inherited from her grandmother. Director Pauline Jeanbourquin follows this ordinary-yet-extraordinary young woman during a scout summer camp, creating a nuanced portrait of this self-styled “modern witch” as she grapples with the existential questions facing her generation.

Legal age: 12 years, suggested age: 14 years

17-year-old Juliette has just graduated. In the opening sequence of Feu Feu Feu, Pauline Janbourquin films her at the dawn - literally and figuratively - of her new life. First of all, she wants to become a midwife. But Juliette has also become known as a "fire talker", a gift she inherited from her grandmother. A “secret” nevertheless known to her 40,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram. She is also a source of intrigue for the friends with whom she enjoys a summer at scout camp, and for whom, in between swimming, games and parties, she reads cards, soothes sunburns or explains – without ever giving too much away – how she views her role as a magnetiser. Like this friendly audience, regarding its heroine sometimes as a normal young girl sharing the same pleasures and anxieties about the future as her generation, sometimes as the embodiment of an indecipherable mystery, the filmmaker offers no conclusive answers in her exquisitely sensitive portrayal, which places her protagonist outside of the collective, seemingly inhabiting another, cosmic, realm. Juliette, known on social media as "Junniverse", may be a modern-day witch, but she is also a wonderful cinema character.
Emmanuel Chicon

Feu Feu Feu, 2024
Crépuscules, 2017
La Séance de 15h, 2016